“Gwendolen desires above all things to have a horse to ride—a pretty, light, lady’s horse,” said Mrs. Davilow, looking at Mr. Gascoigne. “Do you think we can manage it?”
Mr. Gascoigne projected his lower lip and lifted his handsome eyebrows sarcastically at Gwendolen, who had seated herself with much grace on the elbow of her mamma’s chair.
“We could lend her the pony sometimes,” said Mrs. Gascoigne, watching her husband’s face, and feeling quite ready to disapprove if he did.
“That might be inconveniencing others, aunt, and would be no pleasure to me. I cannot endure ponies,” said Gwendolen. “I would rather give up some other indulgence and have a horse.” (Was there ever a young lady or gentleman not ready to give up an unspecified indulgence for the sake of the favorite one specified?)
“She rides so well. She has had lessons, and the riding-master said she had so good a seat and hand she might be trusted with any mount,” said Mrs. Davilow, who, even if she had not wished her darling to have the horse, would not have dared to be lukewarm in trying to get it for her.
“There is the price of the horse—a good sixty with the best chance, and then his keep,” said Mr. Gascoigne, in a tone which, though demurring, betrayed the inward presence of something that favored the demand. “There are the carriage-horses—already a heavy item. And remember what you ladies cost in toilet now.”
“I really wear nothing but two black dresses,” said Mrs. Davilow, hastily. “And the younger girls, of course, require no toilet at present. Besides, Gwendolen will save me so much by giving her sisters lessons.” Here Mrs. Davilow’s delicate cheek showed a rapid blush. “If it were not for that, I must really have a more expensive governess, and masters besides.”
Gwendolen felt some anger with her mamma, but carefully concealed it.
“That is good—that is decidedly good,” said Mr. Gascoigne, heartily, looking at his wife. And Gwendolen, who, it must be owned, was a deep young lady, suddenly moved away to the other end of the long drawing-room, and busied herself with arranging pieces of music.
“The dear child has had no indulgences, no pleasures,” said Mrs. Davilow, in a pleading undertone. “I feel the expense is rather imprudent in this first year of our settling. But she really needs the exercise—she needs cheering. And if you were to see her on horseback, it is something splendid.”
“It is what we could not afford for Anna,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. “But she, dear child, would ride Lotta’s donkey and think it good enough.” (Anna was absorbed in a game with Isabel, who had hunted out an old back-gammon-board, and had begged to sit up an extra hour.)
“Certainly, a fine woman never looks better than on horseback,” said Mr. Gascoigne. “And Gwendolen has the figure for it. I don’t say the thing should not be considered.”
“We might try it for a time, at all events. It can be given up, if necessary,” said Mrs. Davilow.
“Well, I will consult Lord Brackenshaw’s head groom. He is my fidus Achates in the horsey way.”
“Thanks,” said Mrs. Davilow, much relieved. “You are very kind.”
“That he always is,” said Mrs. Gascoigne. And later that night, when she and her husband were in private, she said—
“I thought you were almost too indulgent about the horse for Gwendolen. She ought not to claim so much more than your own daughter would think of. Especially before we see how Fanny manages on her income. And you really have enough to do without taking all this trouble on yourself.”
“My dear Nancy, one must look at things from every point of view. This girl is really worth some expense: you don’t often see her equal. She ought to make a first-rate marriage, and I should not be doing my duty if I spared my trouble in helping her forward. You know yourself she has been under a disadvantage with such a father-in-law, and a second family, keeping her always in the shade. I feel for the girl, And I should like your sister and her family now to have the benefit of your having married rather a better specimen of our kind than she did.”
“Rather better! I should think so. However, it is for me to be grateful that you will take so much on your shoulders for the sake of my sister and her children. I am sure I would not grudge anything to poor Fanny. But there is one thing I have been thinking of, though you have never mentioned it.”
“What is that?”
“The boys. I hope they will not be falling in love with Gwendolen.”
“Don’t presuppose anything of the kind, my dear, and there will be no danger. Rex will never be at home for long together, and Warham is going to India. It is the wiser plan to take it for granted that cousins will not fall in love. If you begin with precautions, the affair will come in spite of them. One must not undertake to act for Providence in these matters, which can no more be held under the hand than a brood of chickens. The boys will have nothing, and Gwendolen will have nothing. They can’t marry. At the worst there would only be a little crying, and you can’t save boys and girls from that.”
Mrs. Gascoigne’s mind was satisfied: if anything did happen, there was the comfort of feeling that her husband would know what was to be done, and would have the energy to do it.
CHAPTER IV.
“Gorgibus.— Je te dis que le mariage est une chose sainte et sacree: et que c’est faire en honnetes gens, que de debuter par la.
“Madelon.—Mon Dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un roman serait bientot fini! La belle chose que ce serait, si d’abord Cyrus epousait Mandane, et qu’Aronce de plain-pied fut marie a Clelie! Laissez-nous faire a loisir le tissu de notre roman, et n’en pressez pas tant la conclusion.” MOLIERE. Les Precieuses Ridicules.
It would be a little hard to blame the rector of Pennicote that in the course of looking at things from every point of view, he looked at Gwendolen as a girl likely to make a brilliant marriage. Why should he be expected to differ from his contemporaries in this matter, and wish his niece a worse end of her charming maidenhood than they would approve as the best possible? It is rather to be set down to his credit that his feelings on the subject were entirely good-natured. And in considering the relation of means to ends, it would have been mere folly to have been guided by the exceptional and idyllic—to have recommended that Gwendolen should wear a gown as shabby as Griselda’s in order that a marquis might fall in love with her, or to have insisted that since a fair maiden was to be sought, she should keep herself out of the way. Mr. Gascoigne’s calculations were of the kind called rational, and he did not even think of getting a too frisky horse in order that Gwendolen might be threatened with an accident and be rescued by a man of property. He wished his niece well, and he meant her to be seen to advantage in the best society of the neighborhood.
Her uncle’s intention fell in perfectly with Gwendolen’s own wishes. But let no one suppose that she also contemplated a brilliant marriage as the direct end of her witching the world with her grace on horseback, or with any other accomplishment. That she was to be married some time or other she would have felt obliged to admit; and that her marriage would not be of a middling kind, such as most girls were contented with, she felt quietly, unargumentatively sure. But her thoughts never dwelt on marriage as the fulfillment of her ambition; the dramas in which she imagined herself a heroine were not wrought up to that close. To be very much sued or hopelessly sighed for as a bride was indeed an indispensable and agreeable guarantee of womanly power; but to become a wife and wear all the domestic fetters of that condition, was on the whole a vexatious necessity. Her observation of matrimony had inclined her to think it rather a dreary state in which a woman could not do what she liked, had more children than were desirable, was consequently dull, and became irrevocably immersed in humdrum. Of course marriage was social promotion; she could not look forward to a single life; but promotions have sometimes to be taken with bitter herbs—a peerage will not quite do instead of leadership to the man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of twenty meant to lead. For such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. In Gwendolen’s, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and had no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the balance of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort of standing-room or length of lever could have been expected to move the world. She meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking manner; or rather, whatever she could do so as to strike others with admiration and get in that reflected way a more ardent sense of living, seemed pleasant to her fancy.